WARNING ABOUT VERMICULITE AS MEDIUM FOR HATCHING CRESTED GECKOS

I'm guessing this would really apply to anyone breeding any type of gecko and using incubation medium.

On Friday one of my cresties hatched in the middle of the night. When I took him out he appeared to be fine and was already half way through shedding as you can see here.

By the next evening his head had completely changed colour to this. A member very kindly pm'd me to say she'd had a similar case which was down to the hatchling ingesting the incubating medium. So I went to check him more closely and noticed that he was less active when being held and not leaping about as is normally the case and his mouth was gaping open every couple of minutes. His stomach also looked much fuller than his clutchmate.

This morning, very sadly the little hatchling passed away. We decided tonight to open the hatchling up just to be sure.

This is what we found (Graphic pic so please do not click if you don't want to see)

It's quite clear that he has a belly full of vermiculite.

I wanted to post this just so people know what can happen. I know they can hatch at the most unexpected times either when we're asleep or out working for the day. But if you can please get your hatchlings out asap before they can ingest this stuff. Once eaten there is nothing you can do.*It has been asked if the gecko did this from hunger. The answer would be no. The Crested Geckos have their first shed quickly after hatching and would have ingested the vermiculite that was stuck to him as he ate the shed.